Chapter 3: Yes! Independence
Shanghai was a glittering, gray city. Here, skyscrapers and financial centers were built with investments easily running into tens of billions, while every morning, antlike workers dotted the fenced-off construction sites beside subway stations and residential neighborhoods.
In this city that foreign media called China's Manhattan, the joys and sorrows of life played out on everyone's faces every day, whether they had suffered a career setback and been fired, or were stepping eagerly through a university gate with luggage in hand.
Of course, most people simply lived ordinary lives, using their holidays to take their children to enroll in school or attend to something else. Yet there were always one or two things that struck their lives like a bullet breaking the sound barrier at seven hundred kilometers.
And so, while Tang's father was speaking to Su Licheng with a mixture of friendliness and wariness, while Mu Xuan was surprised to encounter the deputy general manager of Big Banyan Construction here, while Tang Wu was still anxiously wondering whether she might suddenly run into Su Can at this university, how awkward it would be if they did meet, and even finding the middle-aged man before her faintly familiar-
Su Can's arrival could only be described as radiant.
He appeared from the administrative building, came up to them, and called, "Dad." Then, quickly suppressing the heat rising in his blood, he turned and smiled at Mu Xuan and Tang's father. "Auntie Mu, Uncle Tang, are you here to help Tang Wu register today too? What a coincidence."
What a coincidence... what a coincidence indeed... Those words brought a brief silence beneath the leafy shade, amid the surrounding gardens alive with cicadas.
Apart from the thoroughly bewildered Su Licheng, the other two adults present were deeply shaken.
Su